United’s CEO Is Ready to Make a Deal for Your Struggling Airline

By nearly all accounts, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has a challenging personality. Earlier in his career, he’d make it clear if he thought a reporter or fellow executive asked a dumb question. “He would intimidate the hell out of people,” says Holly Hegeman, former publisher of industry newsletter PlaneBusiness Banter. Brian Sumers, editor of the Airline Observer, says, “Scott Kirby is one of the smartest people ever in the airline industry. If he has an Achilles’ heel, it’s that he absolutely knows it.” After United hired him in 2016, he went through executive coaching to improve his ...